Emerson is always gentle in dealing with human frailties, and it is nice to find him thus apologising for the laughter of the crowd at the man in pursuit of his blown-off hat: 'To sec a man in a high wind,' he says 'run after his hat is always droll,' but he goes on to say that the drollery consists in seeing the hat becoming master for the moment, and he adds charitably that the 'bystanders cheer the hat.' He warns us against over-laughing, yet he speaks of ' the rest and refreshment we get from the shaking of the sides,' acknowledging that, in some way or other, we do get rest and refreshment from laughter, and that even its ' mad-like antics' do us good.

(36) The greatly differing adjectives applied to laughter give .some indication of its numerous and varied causes. Boisterous, loud, shouting, roaring, ear-splitting, stentorian - convulsive, tumultuous, side-splitting - sneering, mocking, scorning, deriding, scoffing, disdaining, jeering - contemptuous, supercilious, triumphant, conceited, insolent, malicious -grimacing, guffawing, grinning, giggling, tittering, simpering, sniggering, chuckling, cackling, - all these adjectives are in frequent use to qualify either the physical manifestations of laughter, or the state of mind of which these manifestations are accepted as the expression. It will be at once admitted that they do not point to anything dignified in the physical phenomena, nor to anything lovable in the mental state which they express. Bather is it the other way.

(37) The phrases or sayings, in which laughter appears, have much the same character as the adjectives applied to it. Tipsy with laughing, laughing consumedly, the horse-laugh, peals of laughter, the sardonic grin, the dread laugh, laughing in one's sleeve, the 'loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind,' a ' laughing devil in his sneer,' 'the laughter of a fool,' ' laughing, quaffing, and unthinking," they laugh that win,' 'laughter is the hiccup of a fool,' 'the house of laughter makes a house of woe,' 'to laugh at the wagging of a straw,' 'to laugh in one's face and cut his throat' - there is not much in such phrases or sayings to show that there is anything graceful or becoming in the bodily movements of laughter, or that these movements give expression to a joyful, happy, merry, pleasant, kindly state of mind.

(38) What I have just said refers to sonorous or "voiced laughter, but it is scarcely different with the adjectives applied to smiling - the silent laughter confined to the face - or, with the phrases in which it appears. It is called insipid, vacant, cold, affected, self-approving, complacent, ghastly, furtive, insidious. Many of the phrases relating to it are of a like character. We have 'the spare diet of a smile,' the 'villain with a smiling cheek,' 'the vain tribute of a smile,' 'one may smile and smile, and be a villain,' 'I can smile, and murther while I smile,' 'the smiler with the knife under his cloak,' 'eternal smiles his emptiness betray '; 'the barren simper,' 'the smile of gratified pride.' It appears, therefore, that smiling like laughing is by no means always spoken of as the pleasant offspring of a pure joyousness without trace of evil or nastiness in its nature.

(39) No doubt there are pleasant adjectives sometimes applied to smiling, such as engaging, winning, loving, genial, happy, friendly, glowing, angelic, seraphic, heavenly; and so also there are many phrases which refer pleasantly to smiling, such as 'smiles from reason flow,' 'that smile we would aspire to,' 'the smiles of joy,' 'the smile that gives a welcome,' 'the smiles of boyhood's years,' 'shot with a woman's smile.'

(40) It is much more difficult to find altogether pleasant adjectives qualifying audible laughter, or to find it appearing in phrases in a way that makes us think of it as wholly without alloy in its pleasantness. Hobbes makes the essence of laughter to be a sudden sense of our own superiority, with a chuckling over the absurdities and weaknesses of others.

(41) In these adjectives and phrases the quality, inner character, and sources of laughter are in a manner disclosed, and they as a whole go to show that a joyous state of mind, and nothing more, cannot be present in all laughter and all smiling. It would be safe to go further, and say that something very different from pure joyousness must often be expressed in laughter, or at least be mixed up with that which it expresses. There appears, indeed, to be both a laughing and a smiling from which good feeling is entirely absent, and in which cruelty and meanness may be present

(42) There are twenty-nine references to laughter in the Old Testament and four in the New. In thirteen instances the laughter referred to is that of scorn, derision, mocking, or contempt: - laughing at some one, or at some calamity, trial or danger occurs more than once. It is once called madness - 'I said of laughter, it is mad.' Sarah's laugh within herself seems to be the same as the laugh in one's sleeve. It thus appears that the laughter usually spoken of in the Bible is not that which is born of a joyful and merry heart. In only two instances can it be so regarded: - 'Till he fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing,' and 'Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongues with singing.' The word 'smile' does not appear at all in the Bible, and no prophet, saint, or apostle is ever spoken of as laughing.

(43) The inference to be drawn from the way in which laughter is so frequently spoken of is unavoidable, and it seems difficult to hold, as I do, in face of that inference, that there is a laughter which does good. Nevertheless all agree that it does a boy good to 'leap with joy' and 'roar with laughter,' though the leaping and the roaring are altogether unreasonable, and in describing them no one could use such adjectives as dignified or becoming. All healthy-minded people feel that' the laughter of girls is among the most delightful sounds of earth.' It tells of the happiness and health of the girls, and it brings happiness to those who hear it. 'Laugh and grow fat' is a well-founded proverb, and I can myself almost believe that there did exist ' a man who lived upon a smile and well it fed him.' It is surely true that the man who has been robbed, and yet can smile, steals something from the thief. Who can doubt the advantage of being able 'to smile in pain'? Carlyle goes the length of holding that 'the man who cannot laugh is only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.' There seems, however, to be a nasty laugh, and I am not quite able to show how that can do the laugher good. But all laughing is not of that character, and beyond all question there is a laughter which does good and should be courted. It does not shake this opinion, as I see things, that during all laughter the mind is in a state of disorder. Dream-thinking and laughter keep step in this peculiarity. It would seem that no one can be, or .should be, at all times quite soberly sane. If this be true, then all the puzzles find their solution. There is no mental disorder confined to the intellect alone. This may seem a strong thing to say, but I think it is true. The moral faculty always participates. There is as much to be ashamed of in dream-thinking as in any sort of laughter. The causes of laughter are a great multitude with little or no coherence, into which the unlovely and the bad have a door of entry - perhaps necessarily, because in laughter we have a manifestation of mind in disorder, and the moral faculty as well as the intellect must be involved in the disorder.